Sunday, November 16, 2014

Hello, my Dreamlets. Let me tell you a story about things before I dreamed you*:

I wasn't always who you see now. I used to be under some covers. Some crocheted with affection, some perfectly matched to the curtains and the mat and the wallpaper, some soft and lovely, some scratchy and rough.

As much as love has always been my strongest desire, fear has always been my greatest motivator. Before you all knew me, fear was my friend. My jelly. My ketchup. My meatballs. My constant companion.

Before you all knew me, Houdini had nothing on me. I slid and skulked and moved through rooms and days like a ghost. You will not see me, hear me, touch me. I will escape. This was how it went and it went on and on and on.

When I would dance and sing and put on a show at Thanksgiving dinner, I hoped. When I'd do great in school, I hoped. When I learned how to make American Chop Suey without anyone asking me to, I hoped. When I got friends and boyfriends and jobs and I was away I was still tangled up in those blankets, dragging some of them along behind me, some clutched in my fingers.

And I did alright. I did pretty fucking good, actually. And I grew up and packed some things away and found my love and moved on and away and up and up and towards something that I didn't know what.

Then November 16th, 2008 @ 1215 happened and within minutes it was clear that there was a thing in my life that would not be very interested in who I had been. Something that only needed me for who I could be, the someone I was capable of finding underneath the pile.

He was a lovely, trusting baby. He believed in me from his first breath and every day since, I am the one he looks for when he opens his eyes in the morning. I'm the one he demands join him in bed when he lays down his downy head at night.

Every day for 6 years that boy has pulled me more and more into the light of the goddamned day.

My blanket cocoon hangs on. Let's not get crazy. It's attached at certain parts of me that are hard to reach. Parts that are hard to name because I don't like to look at them very much. But a lot of it is gone. Gone and burnt to bits or stuffed into dank and dusty cupboards. And I have to thank my son for that. My boy. My Lincoln. My love.

Happy Birthday, baby.

* That first line is paraphrased from my absolute most favorite book: "Geek Love" by Katherine Dunn